


and i built a home for you (for me)

by godmode



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Romance, also some rly unrequited love between holtz & dr. gorin, anyways. this is angstier than originally planned, past holtz/abby if u squint??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godmode/pseuds/godmode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five part journey of Holtzmann's life that led her to where she is now, which is home, which is safety, which is friendship, which is exactly where she wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i built a home for you (for me)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Holtzmann character study of sorts, I think. The headcanon that she comes from a horrible family background, and was in love with Dr. Gorin when she was younger doesn't belong to me; I simply took the idea and spun it my own way. 
> 
> Title is from To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr @ holtzmnan, feel free to come chat!

 

i.

6-year-old Jillian Holtzmann is lying in bed, wide awake, and has been for the last hour or so. It's not that she doesn't want to sleep—she can’t. How can she, when her first day of kindergarten is tomorrow? Her eyes flicker over to her dresser, where her first day of school outfit sits. Skimming the stack of clothes, she stops herself from getting out of bed and going through the pile again. After all, triple and quadruple checks should be enough. Instead, she mentally confirms that her bright pink blouse, denim overalls, and neon colored knee-high socks are all there. Heaving a sigh, Jillian looks over to the clock on her wall, counting along with all the soft _tick-tick-tick_ sounds, wishing that the short hand would hurry it up and get to the seven already. Before long, she finds herself drifting into sleep.

Her parents drop her off at school, sending her off with reminders to “make friends” and “don't cause too much trouble! (I won't, Daddy, I promise)”. Jillian marches into the classroom confidently, donned in her eclectic outfit that now has a pair of hiking boots and multiple scrunchies added to the mix (all of her choosing, of course). She sits down next to the first girl she sees, and sticks out her hand with a wide smile. “Hi! I'm Jillian Holtzmann, but you can call me Jill. Do you want to be my friend?” The girl looks at her outstretched hand hesitantly, before grasping it and declaring, “I'm Megan. I'm 5. You're kind of weird.”

(She thinks it's a compliment.)

\

Jillian goes to school for a couple months before deciding that she hates it. It wasn't the learning part of it, no. She's eager to learn, and earns the highest praise a 6-year-old can get from a kindergarten teacher. Rather, it was the “interacting with other people” part she wasn't fond of. Relating to other girls was always a challenge for her, never understanding why they all liked to play house. That wasn't an issue, though. As much as she didn't want to play with the other girls, they didn't want to play with her either, deeming her too loud and brash and unprincesslike for them. She would much rather be taking some machine apart, or chasing a ball through the dirt and mud anyways, which meant her preferred choice of companion were the boys. At first, they were fine with her hanging out with them. She could hold her own in an intense game of kickball, and was as good as catching bugs as the rest of them. As she got older, however, the boys seem to have decided that they didn't want a girl playing with them anymore. After all, she might have cooties. And neither group was interested in watching her take apart and put back together old radios, or draw up incredibly intricate blueprints for time-machines and other inventions. She was deemed the weird girl with the machines, always the subject of whispers and stares by the rest of her class.

(For the first time in her life, she thinks that being weird might be a bad thing.)

 

ii.

Jillian Holtzmann decides that middle school is going to be a fresh start for her. She walks into class the first day of 6th grade with the same confidence as 6-year-old her did in kindergarten. When the teacher asks the class if they had any interesting stories about their summer, she tells a story of how she woke up during her family's annual camping trip face to face with a ghost, with wide-eyes and a voice full of conviction. Enough conviction, in fact, for her peers to deem her crazy, and thus began her journey of being called “Jill-on-pills” and “Ghostmann”.

She doesn't care. It doesn't bother her.

(The two sentences run through her mind every day, like a train on an unending track. She wishes they had the same amount of conviction behind them as her ghost story did.)

\

She overhears her parents talking about her one day, and can’t help but press her ear to the door to listen, and catches the end of their conversation.

“If our Jilly was having problems, she'd come to us. That hasn't happened yet, so why worry?”

“Do you know how it feels to have teachers call, concerned because our child eats lunch in the bathroom, and prefers the company of tools and machines over people? She's 13 and still believes in ghosts, for crying out loud.”

“She's...just a late bloomer, is all. She'll grow up soon.”

Her mom scoffs.

“You know it’s your fault our child is so _fucked up_. I should've never let you put those fantasies in her mind when she was younger. It's because of you that we have a screw up for a kid.”

(She wishes she'd kept walking past the door.)

For a while, she tries to act normal. She stops speaking of ghosts, and tries to strike up conversations with the people in her classes. It doesn't matter, though. Her mom still leaves, she still fails to make any friends (being friends with Ghostmann was a one way ticket to Loserville, apparently), and somewhere along the line, her dad stopped caring.

(She wishes that she could, too, and that she could just be _normal_.)

 

iii.

From that point forward, Holtzmann decides that she no longer “gives a fuck”, as she so eloquently puts it. She tried to be who other people wanted her to be for a while, and look where it got her. Divorced parents, an absent mother, a father who was never at home (always drunk when he was), and no friends. She's playing by her rules now. So, as one does when they go through a major life-change, she cuts her hair. And not just a trim-off-a-few-inches cut either. She simply took a look at herself in the mirror one day, and pulls the razor out, deciding that she wanted her hair gone. And gone it is, after she’s done with it. It’s completely buzzed off, save for a deeply side-parted mop of waves in the front. She nicks herself a couple times in the process, but the result comes out looking a lot better than she expected it to, so really, it could’ve been worse.

High school is significantly easier for her to navigate. With a bigger school comes a bigger student population, and most kids were too preoccupied with grades and/or being crowned prom king and queen to bother her anyway. In fact, it was like no one really noticed her, which beat the hell out of being bullied for being different. She trades a few words with her peers here and there, usually about the homework or the upcoming test. Her classes weren’t challenging; in fact, they were almost too easy. Her math and physics teacher, in particular, noticed that she was breezing through all the assignments, and scheduled regular after school meetings to teach her some more challenging topics. As a result, she was allowed to skip ahead in math and science, and begin taking classes at the local community college for credit, provided that she take a placement test first (which she did, and aced, of course).

(Holtz thinks for the first time in her life that she might be doing something right.)

\

She makes a friend, finally. Kind of, anyway. Eating lunch in the library or bathroom alone is quickly turned down in favor of eating lunch in the physics room with the AP physics teacher, Dr. Gorin. She’s the only person that notices her, really notices her, and they strike up something of a friendship. She brings her the latest issue of _Physics Today_ , and Holtzmann asks her any questions that she has on the material she’s learning. The 40 minutes spent talking about particle physics and the existence of black holes quickly becomes the best part of her day.

She graduates all too soon, with all straight A’s in all her classes, including honors and APs, a 5.0 GPA, and a full-ride scholarship to MIT. Her dad doesn’t show up, and she can’t help the small twinge of disappointment, but it’s not like she really expected him to come. Still, when the dean announces that her class is officially the graduated class of ‘94, she doesn’t think she’s ever been happier as she tosses her cap into the air with the rest of the graduation class. As the crowd disperses to find their families, she takes her gown off, fully prepared to walk home by herself.

“Leaving so soon?” a familiar voice calls out to her, and she spins around, and is face to face with none other than Dr. Gorin herself. She presses a pair of yellow aviator goggles into Holtz’s hands, and points to where “Dr. Jillian Holtzmann” is engraved into the metal rim, “You’ve always done things different than the rest, so I thought you’d appreciate these more than a pair of old lab goggles.” She thinks it might be the best gift she’s ever gotten. “On to bigger and brighter things, Jillian. Don’t look back,” she says, and sticks her hand out for a handshake. Surprisingly, Holtzmann finds herself taking Dr. Gorin’s hand and pulling her into a stiff hug. There’s a million and one things she could’ve said, but she settles for, “Thank you,” knowing that the teacher understood she was thanking her for more than the goggles.

(She thinks Dr. Gorin is the closest thing to family she’s ever had.)

 

iv.

College is the first time in her life where Holtz thinks she’s found her place in the world. Her roommate drops out in the middle of the school year, so she ends up getting the whole dorm room to herself, which is fine with her. More room for her inventions. She chooses the hardest physics and engineering courses she can take, completely overloading her schedule, and she absolutely _loves_ it. She loves the people in her classes, too. They’re all a little weird, like her—they’d have to be to even consider signing up for the class. There’s a maximum of ten people in each of her classes, so they all really had no choice but to develop something of a friendship with each other. She finds herself getting invited to group study sessions, and even a small party, once, to celebrate the end of finals. On some level she knows that these aren’t real friendships, and they’ll be gone by the end of the semester, but she’ll take whatever she can get. It’s a hell of a lot more than what she’s been given in the past.

College is also when she realizes that she, Jillian Joy Holtzmann, likes girls. Like, a lot. And girls like her back. They like her enough to buy her drinks, drag her out for a dance or two, and eventually drag her back to their/hers/someone’s dorm. It’s usually hers. Makes the whole “leave in the middle of the night so no strings can get attached” thing a lot easier when they end up at her place. She wakes up alone more often than not, and it hurts, but not as much as waking up with someone else in her bed. The ones that stay always stay long enough for her to think that they could be something more, but always leave before that fleeting notion in her mind could be cemented into anything real. She has a girlfriend for a record of three months before Damaris realizes that the language of quantum physics is the only way Holtz knows how to communicate in, and electrical wires and its corresponding circuits are the only things that she is sure of. When she ends up in the hospital when one of her inventions randomly blows up in her face, Damaris stays long enough to see her get better. She leaves soon after, telling Holtz, “It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t want to make you choose between me or science. It’s not fair.”

(The thing is: no matter how much Holtzmann likes explosions, she likes building and repairing things more.)

\

She passes all her classes with flying colors, and graduates from college a year early. When her name is called up, she walks up the stage and unceremoniously takes her diploma and walks off the stage as soon as she is allowed to. A few people she talks to fairly often go up to her, take pictures, chat a little, but soon enough she’s alone again. Holtzmann is 21, graduated top of all of her classes, and all she has left is a paper thin diploma. CERN contacts her with a job offer, but she declines. Instead, she moves to New York, finds a one room apartment in Manhattan, and wanders the streets until the early hours of the morning, before climbing up the fire escape of her apartment building and camping out on the roof until the sun comes up. She rarely remembers to eat, and sleeps even less. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t know who she is anymore.

She brings her diplomas, safety goggles, and countless blueprints up onto the roof with her one day, before daybreak. For a while, she sits silently, staring at the circle of papers she’s surrounded herself with. In her hands are the goggles Dr. Gorin gave her the day of her high school graduation. As the sun rises above the horizon, the light hits where her name is engraved into the rim, and she just stares. She spends the day on the roof, occasionally playing 80’s pop music from her phone as she goes over everything she’s ever invented, occasionally leaning over the side of the building, just watching the people of New York go about their days. When the sun starts to set, she puts her goggles on and watches the sky go from blue, to orange, to pink, to black.

The very next day, Holtzmann finds herself at the admissions office at Columbia University. They gladly accept her into their doctorate program in engineering. She writes and she builds and learns and thinks and theorizes and talks and laughs, but most of all, she remembers. She remembers the joy she gets from finally understanding a new physics concept, from finalizing plans for a new machine, from twisting in the final screw of a mechanical contraption. She remembers what it’s like to be Holtzmann.

When she walks across the stage to get her diploma a final time, it’s with her head held high. She doesn’t mind that the room is almost dead silent, save for a few claps here and there when her name is called up. She knows that she’s done damn well, and the small nod Dr. Gorin gives her from her seat in the back of the room is the only confirmation of that she really needs.

(The only constant in her life has been Dr. Gorin, and she thinks this is something akin to love.)

(It’s more like a goddamn tragedy.)

 

v.

25-year-old Holtzmann is sitting at a cafe, skimming over the latest published article on quantum mechanics one morning when she sees a flyer being taped up in the window of the restaurant. She tosses all her papers into her backpack, grabs her sandwich, and walks outside, curiosity getting the better of her. She tilts her head up to look at the flyer, squints, and pulls it down. Still chewing, she reads it over. It’s a help wanted ad for a lab assistant at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science. The minute she reads that whoever gets the job will have access to a fully stocked science lab, she’s hooked. She doesn’t need to know the rest of the details of the job. She dusts the crumbs off of the flyer, shoves it into the pocket of her high-waisted pants, and heads down to the school.

She’s walking down the halls of the building, poking her head into every room, trying to find a one Dr. Abby Yates. It doesn’t take her long. A loud crash echoes throughout the hallway, followed by a string of not-so-quietly muttered curses. The plaque outside the door reads, “Dr. Abigail Yates”. Bingo. Holtz walks in, making her way through a maze of desks and scattered papers. “Dr. Yates? I’m here about the job offering. Do you, uh, need some help? Because of the crashing noises I heard outside? I mean, you obviously need some help in general or you wouldn’t have put the flyer up but-woah,” her rambling is cut short as she takes in the image before her. A short, dark-haired woman dressed in a plaid button up, a cardigan, and jeans is carefully picking up a complex looking machine and placing it onto a table. The work area is covered in different machine parts and wires, and Holtz thinks she’s found her home.

“Can I help you?” the woman asks, turning to look Holtzmann in the eye for the first time since she’s walked in. “Oh, yes! I’m Holtzmann. Jillian Holtzmann. I’m here about the lab assistant opening?” she hurriedly digs out the flyer from her pocket, and smooths out the crinkles as best she can. “I graduated from Hawthorne Math and Science Academy in California, got my bachelor’s at MIT in nuclear science and engineering, graduated a year early-I can prove it to you-and I have a pH.D. in engineering from Columbia. I have all my diplomas and stuff, they’re back at my apartment but I can come bring them to you, no biggie, and I’m really good with my hands. For building things,” she lets all that out in a rush, and looks at the woman earnestly, sticking her hand out. The woman eyes her for a second, before grasping her hand, “I’m Dr. Abigail Yates, but you can call me Abby. Didn’t really expect anyone to respond so quickly, or at all, really, so I guess you’ve got the job. You’re familiar with what I’m researching, I assume?” At Holtz’s confused look, she gestures towards the flyer with her chin, “I’m the professor of paranormal science here. You know, ghosts?” Holtzmann’s face breaks out in a wide, albeit a bit maniacal grin, and she nods slowly. “Yes, I’m definitely familiar with ghosts.”

Work with Abby is easy. They balance each other out perfectly. What Abby lacks in engineering and machinery knowledge, Holtzmann has it all down. And what Holtzmann lacks in the knowledge of the science behind the paranormal, Abby knows. They work together like a well oiled machine. Abby apparently lives by the motto of “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet”, and so she strikes up a friendship with Holtzmann fairly quickly. At first, it was just idle conversations while they were working together, and the occasional lunch break. But it slowly turned into movie nights and going out shopping and to bars together. Upon discovering the trash heap of an apartment Holtz lives in, Abby immediately demands that Holtz move in with her, and she refuses to take no for an answer. Slowly, they become each other’s best friend, and for Holtz, Abby is her first real friend.

(She thinks this might be happily ever after.)

\

Which is why, when a redheaded Erin Gilbert comes along, she is wary. After a couple beers and one too many chick flicks one night, Abby tearfully spills the story of how Gilbert used to be her best friend, and how they planned on hunting ghosts together, and how that all changed when Columbia University and tenure came into the picture. So, after Abby drifts off into an alcohol induced sleep, Holtz digs out the copies of _Ghosts From Our Past_ from the storeroom, and puts it for sale on Amazon. Because she’s insanely loyal, and insanely protective, and insanely protective of the people she’s loyal to. Because she got her pH.D at Columbia, and she knows all about tenure, and it doesn’t take a genius (which she is) to figure out that Columbia plus tenure plus ghosts will never equate to a chemical reaction that can be balanced. Because unstable reactions more often than not will cause explosions, and Holtz loves blowing things up.

What Holtz doesn’t love is cleaning messes up. So when Erin comes looking for Abby, she is at a loss for what to do. She wants so desperately to hate this woman for hurting Abby, _her_ Abby, but she finds that she can’t. She takes one look at the impossibly tense woman and wants to know everything about her. What makes her tick, what gets her to unwind, even where she gets those ridiculous tweed blazers. She is intrigued and completely enamoured. If the first words she says to Erin are a sultry, “Come here often?”, then who can blame her? She quickly follows it with, “I’ve heard terrible things about you,” and she doesn’t miss the way Erin’s face falls a little when she hears it. She also doesn’t miss the way an uncomfortable feeling settles in the pit of her stomach either, but she’ll never admit to it.

She knows that Erin’s going to leave Abby (and her) for Columbia and stupid tenure again, so she posts the video of her and the ghost at Aldridge Mansion onto the Internet. Her putting _Ghosts From Our Past_ on sale didn’t exactly yield the results she wanted, so it’s only fair that she, as a scientist, alter the variables slightly and put the reaction into action again. This time, it works. When Gilbert comes over and announces that she’s been fired, she lets out a celebratory cheer in her mind.

(She tells herself it’s because Abby finally gets her friend back, and not because she does too.)

\

Holtz doesn’t know what to think of Patty. They’re almost exactly the same person. Patty’s smart, undeniably so. She knows too much and rambles when she’s explaining something and is loud and brave and bravely unapologetic. But she’s also responsible, and good with other people, two things that Holtz has never been able to master. She doesn’t care about getting her masters or her doctorate degree, and she loves her job at the MTA. She is two sides of a coin, two ends of the same rope, and Holtzmann can’t get a good read on her. So she keeps her distance, not distrustful but not about to put her life into her hands.

Until, of course, it is thrust into Patty’s hands against Holtz’s will. She’s dangling two stories up, clinging to Abby’s (Rowan’s?) arm with both hands, and the only thing that’s going to catch her fall is a very busy street. She watches in horror as Rowan-Abby pushes and shoves Patty around, then watches in admiration and a bit of fear when Patty proves that she can hold her own and fights back. When she’s hauled back onto solid ground, she’s hunched over on all fours, choking and grasping at her own throat. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches as Patty slaps Rowan out of Rowan-Abby, and slaps her again to make sure she’s back to being Abby-Abby. Holtzmann makes a mental note to never piss Patty off.

When Rowan enters Kevin’s body and flies off on his motorbike, Abby and Holtz are immediately on their feet and scrambling for the door. It’s Patty who grabs their hands and pulls them back, who makes them sit at the table while she cleans up the glass shards on the floor. It’s Patty who gives Abby an ice pack for her cheek, cleans all of the cuts on the back of Holtz’s head, hands them both two painkillers and a bottle of water each. It’s Patty who refuses to let them leave until they’ve finished their sandwich, saying, “Y’all aren’t gonna be much help to Kevin if you’ve got low blood sugar. Eat. Then we can go save our beefcake from destroying the world.” So when Patty tosses Holtzmann the keys to Ecto-1, she catches them, and promptly launches herself at Patty in a bearhug, and plays Fleetwood Mac in the car the whole drive to the Mercado Hotel. Because Patty just saved her life, and now they’re on the way to saving the rest of the world, and because Patty is a tangled mess of wires and circuits and electricity and Holtz wants to spend the rest of her life figuring her out.

(She hopes she never does.)

\

They’re split-seconds away from closing the portal, and they’re so close, _so close_ , to victory, to forever, when Rowan grabs Abby and pulls her into the portal with him. Erin’s already leaped in after her before Holtz and Patty can even process what had just happened. When it sinks in, Holtz feels herself breaking. _No,_ she thinks, _I just got my family back._ It’s Patty that shakes her out of her daze, and frantically yells for her to pull on the cord Erin’s got tied around her waist.

They both come out of the portal alive, stumbling onto the pavement. She laughs, and pulls Erin in for a teary hug. She feels the other two piling on, and she doesn’t even mind that there are three sweaty bodies surrounding her, in the middle of day, exhausted and exhilarated. When they pull apart, Patty points out Erin and Abby’s white hair, and the duo freak out about it. Erin asks how long they were in the portal, and Holtzmann makes a joke about it being the year 2040 and plant presidents. Kevin, sweet, sweet Kevin, shows up in his Ghostbusters jumpsuit, holding a sandwich, looking no worse for wear, and says something about his role in saving the world, and suddenly they’re clutching at their sides, laughing until they cry, and then laughing even harder. It’s warm and messy and there’s a feeling that settles inside Holtzmann that’s she’s never felt before: pure happiness.

(It feels like coming home.)

 

vi.

Holtzmann is 33, and she's sitting at a restaurant with the Ghostbu-no, not just the Ghostbusters; her _friends_ -beside her, and they’re still buzzing with the realization that they all just helped save the world from an apocalypse. She stands up abruptly, and tells the group that she wants to make a toast. Her voice starts out shaky at first, but gets stronger as she finds that the words she’s kept bottled up inside for so long come easily to her. “Physics is the study of the movement of, uh, bodies and space, and it can unlock the mysteries of the universe, but it cannot answer the essential question of what is our purpose here, and to me, the purpose of life is to love and to love is what you have shown me. I didn’t think that I would ever really have a friend until I met Abby and then I feel like I have a family of my own and I love you, thank you,” she ends her speech with her voice a little croaky, and sits down as abruptly as she got up. Abby and Patty look at her in disbelief for a little bit, before awkwardly thanking her and telling her they loved her too. Erin joins them too, but there’s something akin to sympathy and maybe even a little admiration in her eyes when she talks to her after that.

“Your toast was very beautiful, Jillian,” Erin tells her softly once they leave the restaurant.

“You're beautiful,” the engineer quips, giving her a wry smile before shoving her hands into the pockets of her overalls, keeping her eyes forward. They walk in silence for a while, neither wanting to be the first to break the peace.

“It was all true, y'know? I meant every word of it. I just-I don't get other people, and other people certainly don't get me. My parents didn't,” Holtzmann starts suddenly, laughing a little before continuing. “My mom decided she couldn't deal with all the crazy, and just up and left. My dad stopped caring pretty much when she did. And I never had many friends, so for the longest time it was just me. Then Abby came along, and now you guys...” she lets her voice trail off, in a tone more vulnerable than she's ever let show.

“Me too,” is all Erin says, earning a slightly confused look from the blonde. “Ghost girl, remember? I got into some really bad habits for a while. My parents stuck me in therapy for years, and there are still days where I don't know what's real and not real. Guess we're both a little messed up, huh?”

Holtzmann just gives her a smile, and they continue on their walk. It's a while before she gives Erin a reply.

“You're my ghost girl.”

The way Erin threads their fingers together, and lets Jillian skim her fingers over her wrist without flinching, before gripping her hand tighter, and the way she leans into her, close enough for Jillian to smell the floral shampoo she uses, close enough for her to plant a kiss on her side of her head (if she wanted to), makes them both think that maybe crazy isn't a bad thing.

Maybe every path she’s gone down and everything she’s been through was supposed to lead her to exactly where she is today.

Maybe this, _all of this_ , is just enough to be perfect.


End file.
